Peacock Just Added a Criminally Underrated Crime Thriller From the Last Decade
Two years before Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan teamed with David Mackenzie on Hell or High Water, the scrappy $12 million film that punched above its weight with $37.9 million worldwide and four Oscar nods, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor.
Before Yellowstone turned Taylor Sheridan into a primetime empire-builder, he wrote a little modern Western that absolutely rips: Hell or High Water. It ’s lean, mean, and somehow both old-school and painfully current. It just left Netflix and is now streaming on Peacock. If you have access, queue it up. This one’s worth your time.
- Who made it: Written by Taylor Sheridan; directed by David Mackenzie
- Who’s in it: Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham
- What it cost vs. made: $12 million budget, $37.9 million worldwide gross
- Hardware buzz: Four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for Jeff Bridges
- Where to watch now: Peacock (it just rotated off Netflix)
Modern Western energy, present-day problems
Call it a neo- Western if you want; I’d go with modern Western. The movie lives in today’s Texas, where the myth of the frontier butts heads with banks, debt, and people who never quite got a fair shot. Toby and Tanner Howard (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) start robbing small-town branches with a plan that’s a lot smarter than most movie heists. The catch? This isn’t the lawless past, and Texans tend to carry. That oversight turns several encounters into tense, ugly firefights.
It’s not an action bonanza. The gunfights are brief and vicious, and the fallout is rough. What really sells the Western vibe is the desperation running through every stop on the brothers ’ route — diners, foreclosed ranches, half-empty streets. You feel how little oxygen is left in this world. The system wasn’t built for guys like the Howards to win.
Bridges is great, but it’s not a one-man show
Jeff Bridges earned his Oscar nomination as Marcus Hamilton, a Texas Ranger coasting toward retirement but clearly not ready to let the hunt go. He pounces on the Howard case, relishing the chase, and never misses a chance to needle his partner, Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham). The jabs get mean enough that you do wonder if these two actually like each other, but the film pays that off with a moment that makes their bond land.
Don’t sleep on the brothers, though. Pine gives Toby a quiet, methodical center — the guy trying to keep the plan airtight. Foster’s Tanner is chaos with a smirk, forever making the exact reckless choice that could blow the whole thing up. Their push-and-pull keeps the tension tight, but even when they’re at each other’s throats, the movie makes it clear: they’re ride or die.
The ending that sticks without going big
No spoilers, but the movie doesn’t save a giant shootout for the last five minutes. The worst of the violence hits earlier, and it actually raises the emotional stakes heading into the final stretch. What’s left is a face-off that’s more about intent than bullets — an explicit invitation to settle things that both sides take very seriously. We don’t see that showdown. The film lets the threat hang there, which is exactly right for this story: nothing is neatly solved, and the grind to survive doesn’t stop just because the credits roll.
Bottom line: Hell or High Water is one of the standout crime- thrillers of the last decade, and it’s back on streaming. It’s on Peacock now. Make time.